


Catalyst

by candle_beck



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-21
Updated: 2011-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-23 22:39:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/255841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candle_beck/pseuds/candle_beck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing wrong with Danny is that he's not Huston.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catalyst

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted March 2006. Takes place during the first World Baseball Classic, which was played during spring training that year.

Catalyst

(one that precipitates a process or event, especially without being involved in or changed by the consequences)

You start out all right, because here in Phoenix you can wake up like nothing in your life was ever written down. You’re trailing your teammates from place to place, hands in your pockets and the streetlights pouring around you, or the sun if it’s more appropriate. It’s a fine day, a good time for the drive-thru liquor store and eating fast food in the car, Crosby throwing balled-up napkins and Zito bitching at him for making a mess.

Things are getting weird. You come across Crosby strewn in the upstairs hallway, his hands curled up like dry leaves, and you stop, studying him. The hallway lights are off, stair-railing shadows pressed up on the ceiling.

You nudge Crosby’s leg with your foot and he twitches, sneaking a look from under his eyelashes. He’s playing possum, holding his finger up to his lips. You roll your eyes and go back downstairs, where Haren grins at the sight of you and tries to make you take shots, and Zito is calling from the living room, “Rich, come fix this fucking machine.”

Ellis finds Crosby a little while later and comes down with a manic smile on his face, saying, “Bobby’s passed out, who’s got a Sharpie?”

You keep quiet as the others hoot and thud up the stairs, fiddling with the wires behind the television, your hands coated in slippery gray dust. It’s a practical joke, you’re pretty sure, but the punchline is hard to figure. You’re too drunk for this, anyway, and little electric shocks keep wrenching into your fingers.

There are bikes in the front hall, leaning against the white wall like skeletons. There are shoes in a pile and magazine pages scattered on the carpet. You know that you live here, in this boxy drafty house a little ways away from the university, but you think that if you left with the clothes on your back, there would be no evidence to prove it.

Crosby comes down laughing, careening into the living room. “Man, you shoulda seen their faces, dude.”

You leave the wires alone and slump back against the wall, trembling. “What was that about, anyway?”

Crosby shrugs, smears of black on his palms from when he battled the Sharpie away from the others. “It was funny. I’ve been doing stuff like that recently.”

His face is flushed, and he launches into a long story that you have trouble following. You’re tired almost all the time, trying to find your rhythm again. You can hear the other guys talking upstairs, and Crosby’s voice is hoarse and cracking. You want to curl up and not be alone when you do. You should call Street, who is only a few days removed and only a few strip malls away, but it’s very hard to get your body to do what you ask of it, and so you give in.

You sleep on the couch even though you’ve got a perfectly good bed upstairs. It just seems like too much effort. Zito has collapsed in the chair with his legs over the arm and his body slowly sliding towards the floor. You wake up to find him wrapped around the coffee table.

Haren is making Eggo waffles in the kitchen, leaning hard against the counter, his eyes flicking up past your wrinkled shirt to your matted hair. You exchange grunts in greeting and you drink your first Red Bull of the day, because you gave up coffee for Lent.

Feeling slightly better about existence in general, you take in the fact that Haren is wearing different clothes than last night, and you are confused.

“You don’t live here, Dan, do you?”

He gives you a look, hooking his waffles out of the toaster oven with a fork. “No.”

You rub your eyes. “Huh.”

Zito hollers from the living room for you to keep it the fuck down. Haren opens his mouth to holler something back, but you shake your head at him, it’s not worth it. He shrugs and eats his waffles dry, and you eat yours with maple syrup and fake butter. He weaves and checks you into the counter on his way to the sink, where he cups his hands and pours water over his hair, streaming around his ears and down his neck.

This is how it goes. You all leave the house together, and Crosby has to run back three times for things he forgot, because Crosby’s life happens in increments of spare change and his broken watch and the CDs he makes that nobody else wants to listen to.

It’s so bright outside, you can hear your pupils stretching, imagining telescopes and zoom lenses and stuff like that. Zito wanders across the street to take pictures of the palm trees. Haren is pacing a small circle around you, and you’re getting dizzy.

You tell him to knock it off and punch him on the shoulder. He pushes his damp hair back off his forehead and his eyes come out like even more sky.

“You’ve got syrup on your face,” Haren informs you mildly. You scrub your mouth with your hand, bending to look in the car’s side mirror, but there’s nothing there and Haren is fucking with you. You decide to ignore him.

Zito’s boring, though, talking about light and shutter speeds, saying, “See, it’s the contrast, with the lines of the house being all straight and the trees being all wild.”

You idly consider snatching his camera and end-zone spiking it on the sidewalk. That’s a little much for a practical joke, like poisonous snakes in a can of fake nuts. Crosby comes out of the house for the last time and swears he’s ready to go.

So you go.

You can’t get over the desert. You went to school down here and it got in you then like the dirt under your nails that never gets all the way cleaned out. The clouds are making incredible shapes, all laddered and ribbed, ragged at the edges and you can sympathize with that.

You and Crosby are in your car, and Zito’s tailgating just to be annoying. You can’t see Haren’s car; you think maybe he took the shortcut. You can find the ballpark by following the airplanes. It’s kinda fuzzy this morning, the gray roads as smooth as ribbons, the flicker of palm trees, and you’re glad Crosby is driving.

Spring training is like this sometimes, like the styrofoam feeling of your muscles and the ball taking control over its flight the instant it’s out of your hand. Spring training is spent learning how to talk to your friends again, and all these stunts you keep pulling on each other are just to make sure the team is the same as it was last year.

The team is remarkably similar to what it was last year. You’ve never come back so intact.

Street calls when you’re in the clubhouse, playing tabletop football with Haren. Street is in the same city, highway miles away. You can’t get used to seeing him on television in his soda-can-colored Team USA uniform, but that’s the least of your concerns.

“Hey, Richie, how’s it going?”

You wave Haren off, and he makes a face at you, goes over to bug Zito. “Pretty good.”

“You’re not pitching today, are you?”

“No. It’s gonna be Joe.”

“Oh. Cool.”

You stretch and pop your shoulders. “You gonna come hang out with us tonight? After my team, you know, obliterates your team?”

Street snorts. “As if, dude. But yeah. I’ll come.”

“Cool.”

You don’t think Canada is actually going to win the game, but you miss Street kind of a lot. You want to see him in the sunlight they’ve got down here, in real life not broken up by commercials. Everybody plays day games in the Cactus League, reverse vampires.

Street hasn’t changed, not even a little bit. You have this image of him five years from now, the exact same, and ten years, still with his alchemical smile and the weird step-back in his delivery, and then people would probably want to study him and put him in a room with white walls. Figure out how he stayed twenty-one years old for a decade.

Blanton pitches and Crosby hits a home run in the third and almost breaks your ribs coming in to the dugout. You get sunflower seeds stuck in your teeth and keep watch on the rusted stone mountain beyond the outfield wall. The lit part of your life can be organized into little boxes filled with obscure symbols, but not everything is that simple.

Towards the end of the game, Zito comes up from the clubhouse stumbling with laughter, telling you that Canada beat the U.S. and the whole team owes you twenty bucks.

It’s a good day. Danny stuffs his twenty down the front of your shirt and then puts you in a headlock, won’t let you go for about fifteen minutes. Your face presses against his ribs and you can hear his heartbeat. You don’t mind, feeling the money crinkle on your stomach, caught up against your belt, feeling Haren hot like the hood of a running car. You want to be drunk, and so drunk you shall be.

It’s still light outside when you get to the bar, and you worry about that for a minute, but you know in your heart that alcohol won’t be the thing that kills any of you. The wood of the booth’s table is shiny and scuffed and Haren wants to sit next to you and talk about the Oscars.

Ellis and Swisher bring beers and a deck of cards and then there’s falling aces, spiraling diamonds. You’re rich tonight and Canada is on top of the world. Haren’s arm is up along the back of the booth, soft when you lean back.

“I don’t think you understand how totally wrong it is to bluff with that hand,” Zito is saying to Crosby.

“You’re not even playing, so shut up.”

Zito coughs and raises his eyebrows. “It’s because I’m not playing that I can speak with such authority.”

“Great. Shut up.” Crosby pushes Zito off him, scowling and hiding his cards under his hand.

You smile. You like this, it’s all very familiar. Chavez is wandering around without purpose, a beer in his hand and a dumb look on his face. He’s the one who hisses as the door opens and light blasts in, and yells Street’s name.

You look up, your pulse kicking up for some reason, and Street is grinning hugely, patches of sunburn on his neck where he missed with the suntan lotion. You saw him just a couple of days ago, before he left camp, so there’s no reason to be looking for differences in him already.

“Hi, y’all,” Street says in his same old voice, same old eyes, same old teeth that make your head just fucking ache.

Everybody immediately starts ragging on him about the game, though Street cannot be blamed and they all know that. It’s just expected. Street shoulders it gamely and buys a round, at which point he is completely forgiven.

Haren is quiet at your side and you are watching Huston Street, who glances at you occasionally, sideways smiles and his thumb hooked in a belt loop. Street is still this impossible thing.

It’s an hour or maybe two before you get a chance to talk directly to him, when Haren goes to play darts and leaves a cold spot beside you. Street is not a perfect substitute; he’s much smaller than Haren, even smaller than you are, and you remember being so endeared to him for that simple reason, after years of being shorter than almost everyone and endlessly waiting to grow into your hands and feet. But he fits well, smells of cologne and beer and gasoline.

“Hey,” Street says. You echo it, nervously shifting your feet under the table. “How was your game?”

It’s unsettling to hear Street ask that question. Like Zito last year, talking to Hudson or Mulder and his expression twisting the first couple of times, because after five years, the only thing he had never talked to the two of them about was how the game had gone. You want to call Billy Beane and ensure that you and Street are still teammates.

“Good. You know. That kid up from Double-A is making a serious attempt at the outfield.”

“Oh yeah?” Street laughs. “That’s kind of a tough road.”

“We’re trying to keep that a secret. Let the kid think he’s got a shot.”

“Well, everyone’s got a shot. That’s the beauty of it.”

You don’t answer, because this is Street’s second year and he doesn’t know what you do. The non-roster invitees can run themselves into walls and skid for ten feet across the outfield grass and live for each day that they don’t get cut, but the infield is set and so is the rotation and of the three spots in the outfield, five are already taken.

But it’s spring in Phoenix and it makes you believe in stuff. Danny Haren is sneaking looks at you from the dart board, colored bottles catching red and blue across his face, and you cock your head to the side curiously, mouth, ‘what?’ at him. He clenches his jaw and turns back to the game.

You figure it doesn’t matter and nudge Street. “How’s life on the team-that-lost-to-Canada?”

Street tries to glare, and fails. “Listen, batters are behind pitchers as far as being ready, okay? And Willis, the way he throws, takes him like an extra week just to figure it out. Besides which, we got back into the game, just couldn’t finish it out. This kid Loewen, I don’t know, man, they say he’s in A-ball? Seems doubtful. I think he’s a ringer.”

You have to laugh. “How can he be a ringer?”

“Dunno. We’re looking into it.”

Street smiles and you know that he doesn’t care that his (other) team lost today, doesn’t particularly mind being smacked around by your countrymen, and you hum under your breath, _we stand on guard for thee_ , and smile back at Street, glad to be here now.

The night goes quickly, full of pink light and college basketball drenching every television screen, and Street stays by your side. You stay by his. It’s regular, everyday, feels like New Year’s Eve, the way you are making promises and watching the clock with fierce concentration.

On the sidewalk, bits and pieces of your team drifting around you, you put your arm around Street’s shoulders and ask him if he wants to come back with you and you’re not wondering why Street didn’t want to live with you and the other guys this spring. You stopped wondering about that a couple of weeks ago.

But Street is turning you down very politely (you would have expected nothing less), saying, “I need to get some sleep, man, this schedule is killing me.”

You nod; day games are hard. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re aware that the U.S. doesn’t play tomorrow, and Street’s got nothing holding him back, but you don’t acknowledge that. Street must have a reason. He always does.

You clasp his hand and pull him into a hug, buzzed enough to think that it’s all right, and his arm is around your waist, his face scratching at your neck.

“I’ll see you later,” you say into his shoulder.

“Yep,” he says back, and you can feel his lips move and that’s not fair. He steps away and one more perfect grin, one more flash like static electricity in your bloodstream and then Street’s saying goodbye to the rest of the guys, dodging their hands and ducking his head. Haren comes to stand beside you and you barely notice him.

“Hey,” he says softly. You look over and he’s just like always, tall dense-shouldered heavy-featured and fuck those eyes of his, they don’t mean anything. “You ready to go?”

You narrow your eyes suspiciously, the night of drinking whirring in your veins and making it hard to organize your thoughts. Everybody has ulterior motives these days and after having your bed short-sheeted four times in a week, you trust no one.

But Haren is sharp as a safety pin and you don’t want to think about what’s going on with you, why watching Street leave makes your skin feel too tight. You let Haren drive you back to your house, and Crosby is somewhere behind you. Haren is whistling along with the radio. You’re mostly asleep.

“There’s no hope for that guy, you know,” Haren says, startling you. You blink at the wide street and the flurry of neon.

“Who?”

Haren gestures obliquely over his shoulder. “Huston.”

You tense, clutching your elbows like backpack straps. “What’re you talking about?”

Haren glances at you, and you watch his hands fist around the wheel, knuckles standing out straight and pale. He’s got some look on his face, something you can’t place. He clears his throat and shrugs.

“Never mind.”

You slump back and lean your head on the glass. You can feel the hangover already crawling in your synapses. “Whatever,” you mutter, thinking that Street is not on your team right now and you need to accept that.

Back at your house and if Haren was telling the truth when he said he didn’t live here, then what’s he doing here? Why’s he at your back like this, scuffing his shoes on the carpet and his throat clicking as he swallows?

You want to make coffee, but that’s a bad idea. You see Crosby’s headlights wash across the front of the house and you escape into the backyard, dying for air. Haren says your name, like, what are you doing, and you can’t spare the breath to tell him to stay away. You’re drunker than you remember getting.

It’s dark, colder than seems reasonable, and the underwater lights are on in the pool, whickering floats of white-blue, spooky as all hell. You lean on your shoulder against the side of the garage and Haren stands a few feet away in a T-shirt that used to belong to Barry Zito and jeans with one pocket turned out.

“What’s up with you tonight?” Haren asks, and you bare your teeth at him in response. He shifts from foot to foot. “You want me to go?”

You think about that for a while, vaguely aware that you’re sick of Haren coming around, and you don’t want him watching your back or anywhere else. You don’t want him at all. You cant your head so that your hair scrapes across the stucco.

“No, it’s okay. Just. Needed to get out for a second.” You think of this like another practical joke, some scam you’re pulling and nobody can tell.

“We were barely even _in_ ,” Haren points out, as if you didn’t know.

“So?” You close your eyes and you can feel a chafe like ropeburn on the undersides of your eyelids. Very tired, you could sleep here against the side of the garage.

“Danny?”

“What?”

You breathe, trick-flicker, highlight reel in your mind, black Irish hair and dutch blue eyes and you don’t know, honestly, you’re only trying to stay on your feet.

“Nothing,” you say with a sigh. There’s a pause, then a rasp of sneakers on cement, and then Haren is putting his hand on your side and you are freeze-framed. You are painfully conscious of the length of his fingers, the way your hip is notched into his palm and his fingertips are almost touching the run of your spine.

You’re really just worn down to the bone. You’re thinking of the stupid fucking pranks and the lights in the water, and Danny Haren is moving nearer to you in the busted-up pieces of moonlight and the weight of the air.

You wake up with a nauseous throb in your head and your throat aching thickly, staring at a pair of arms that you don’t recognize. You freak out almost immediately, two seconds to notice how skinny the arms look and how that can’t be right, and how the reflection of the white walls seems to gather in the elbow hollows, and then you are stricken. You roll away and curl into yourself. Your skin feels clammy and shrink-wrapped, your mind flying.

Trying to think back, way back and you overshoot it, you’re thinking of last year, Phoenix when the team was a pale imitation and Huston Street was the only thing that would come into focus. And you swore you could hear your ribcage creak open and your lungs draw clean and full for the first time.

You squeeze your eyes shut and reel. It’s Haren, in your bed, in your mouth and the back of your throat. Haren behind you and you don’t understand how that can be possible, his arms are too thin.

You slide back into yourself, skidding your palms on the asphalt. You know what this is. Swollen feeling of your mouth and your neck stiff, your hair finger-wrecked, whorled and jagged. Happy little buzz through your chest, you had sex last night, oh yes. And how could you be so stupid?

Stuff is coming back to you and also all the reasons why this is the worst thing you’ve ever done. Haren kissed your open mouth in the backyard, and Haren doesn’t have the attention span to watch television. You pushed him off because Crosby was somewhere inside, and you and Haren had spent last season sniping at each other and occasionally teaming up to fuck with Zito. Haren smiled wicked and wrenched a hand in your shirt, and you’d never really found him all that attractive. Haren led you upstairs, stumbling over your feet, Crosby singing off-key in the shower, and though you don’t really hate him, you at least have one good reason to, because you’d put your hand on Street’s bare back and you were about to do _something_ , at long fucking last, Street turning to face you and his eyes lighting up, and then Haren had come into the locker room and you froze, broke, played it off like a joke, an awful downward feeling in your stomach that that had been your single best chance. Haren pulled your shirt off and you were near tears. Haren knelt, your hands finding his shoulders, and Haren had been turning up all over the place for the past year of your life. Your jeans opened so easy, you stared at the ceiling and listened to the snaps give, felt Haren’s hands jerk them off your hips and his forehead touched your stomach, and you had lent him forty-five dollars once to pay off a parking ticket and he never got you back for it. Haren licked the indented skin at your waist where the elastic of your shorts had dug in, and he used to make fun of the way you talked. Your hands were deep in his hair and there was a shard of heat and wet and crash behind your eyes, and Danny Haren took you down and down and down and it wasn’t that you didn’t like him, it was just you liked ten guys better than him, and you shouldn’t be doing this with someone who hadn’t even fucking placed.

Moving very carefully, you get out of bed, mortified to realize that you’re naked. Haren is in boxers and a T-shirt, and you wonder why he bothered to get dressed again, before remembering that you’d never actually gotten his shorts farther down than his knees, your hands pushing up under his shirt and the soft sticky fabric in your eyes.

You find your boxers flung onto the dresser, and oddly enough, it’s when you’re decent again that you start to shake hard, clinging to the little sculpted iron knobs of the drawers.

“Dude?”

Haren’s voice is rough like sand in your socks, and you go still, your back to him. There’s a mirror over the dresser, though, which you and Crosby carried up the stairs, arms dead from moving in and talking breathlessly about seven years’ bad luck. Your face is dim and shocked, unfamiliar in this light, your ears bright red. You can see Haren over your left shoulder, badly twisted in the sheets, one of his T-shirt sleeves rucked up and his upper arm showing a silhouette of teeth.

You swallow, feeling sick. “Look.”

Haren’s eyes meet yours in the mirror, wide and hopeful, and you can’t stand that, you look away. You stare at the chipped wooden frame and the Polaroid jammed like a baseball card, you and Huston Street grinning, arms over each other’s shoulders, blurry against the red-blue cop lights.

“All right,” Haren says after a long moment. “Fine.”

You hear him getting up and you glare fiercely at the Polaroid. Haren rustles into his jeans and snicks the zipper up hard enough for you to hear. He mumbles something about where are my fucking shoes, and then he’s a white smear in your peripheral vision and your bedroom door is slamming shut.

And you breathe out.

Calling Street seems to be simultaneously the best and worst idea that you’ve ever had. But you’re pretty sure your chest’s gonna cave in if you don’t see him soon, even scoured like this with a rash on your stomach that you don’t want to know is from Haren’s face. Even with the ragged sound of Haren’s voice rolling like marbles in your skull.

Street is just awoken, his mouth full of cotton, but when he hears it’s you, he perks up and says, “Hey, man, how was your night?”

You almost scream out loud, swallowing it back. You don’t answer and instead ask him if he wants to get breakfast, and he does, he even offers to drive.

You sit on the front porch and the only real reason to love Arizona is that the sky is enough to occupy your thoughts when you don’t want to think about anything else. It’s past dawn, but not by much. Your hands hang loose off your knees; Haren had licked your palm at one point, raked his teeth across the newly formed calluses. You shake your head harshly, gaze into the sun until it makes you sneeze.

Street takes you to the IHOP across the street from the campus, and you watch the college kids in backpacks and flip-flops, bleached hair and scraggly beards. Street is talking fast about something that’s hard to pay attention to. You see a kid outside who carries his shoulders the same way as Haren. You down cup after cup of coffee, breaking your vow because sometimes circumstances are beyond your control, enough cream to turn it the color of old paper, and you brushed your teeth four times before coming out here, you can’t still taste him, that’s just your fucking guilt complex.

“So what’d you guys end up doing after I left, anyways?” Street asks.

You stab at your pancakes, your face pulled into a rictus. “Not much. Just went home.”

Street nods. “Did Bobby let you play the new game?”

“Nah. He’s gotta get real good at first, you know. Win in a walk.”

“See, now, that’s what I’d call being overly competitive.”

Secretly, you’re worse than Crosby. You cannot stand losing, not at anything, it makes your stomach claw hotly, makes your skin itch. You cheat at solitaire. And that’s got to be why you’re taking this so hard, because Haren didn’t just suck you off and then hold your head in his hands as you struggled to regain control, he’d beaten you somehow, taken something you hadn’t intended to give.

You sneak glances at Street across the table, and you should not be allowed in the same zip code as a man like him. He looks younger than the kids pacing the sidewalk, clean as windex. After four weeks in the sun, there are flecked pieces of platinum in his hair. You believe wholeheartedly that your friendship with Street is the thing you will be most proud of when you are finally done with baseball.

“Hey?” Street says with his eyebrows up.

You move your shoulders uncomfortably. “Can I. Is there, like. A reason you got a place of your own down here?”

Street blinks and looks surprised. “Oh. Well. You know, I figured, with the Classic and everything, I wouldn’t be on the same schedule as y’all. And we’re going to Anaheim soon enough, so.”

“Pretty fucking sure of yourself for having lost to Canada,” you reply automatically, just to see Street smile.

“Anyway. It just seemed easier.”

“But that’s it, right?” you press, your fists digging into your knees under the table. “I mean, other than that, you woulda still wanted to live with us?”

Street licks sugar off his hand and says unconcernedly, “Of course, man. And we’ll do it in Oakland. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

You nod to yourself, staring down at the mess of demolished pancakes. “Okay. Thought maybe you were getting tired of us, but okay.”

Street rolls his eyes and kicks you under the table. “You’re my best friend. If I ever get tired of you, you better think of something to make me pay attention again.”

And you could just cry, because you’re his best friend and he’s yours and you can never ever tell him what you were doing last night, certain that it’s a betrayal but not at all clear on the specifics. Are you damned because it was Haren, or because it wasn’t Street? It’s possible that there’s no difference, but that doesn’t make you feel any better.

You cross your fingers, the blue and white of the restaurant making you seasick. “I’ll do what I can.”

Street is grinning again. You remember meeting him, almost exactly a year ago, and wanting him at once and with all that you had in you, like a punch to the stomach. Wanting him so bad it fucked up your eyes and you saw the world through cellophane, aware with stunning intensity that he would not do wrong by you, and you might be able to return the favor.

His phone goes off, tinny country-song ringtone, and he politely excuses himself to answer it. Idly, you unscrew the salt shaker and pour in a good half-inch of sugar. It’s just a reflex, at this point. You watch Street pacing a short path in front of the cash register. He has trouble staying still and that’s something you have in common. He hooks a hand on the back of his neck and you think of Danny Haren with his big hands on the back of your head. Your lip sneers.

Street comes back, saying, “So, man, let’s talk about it for a second. Bobby was saying Pleasanton, but I don’t really wanna be that far out.”

He rattles the sugar all over his hashbrowns. You hide a smile behind your hand. “It’s really quiet out there, though. We could do anything.”

Street is studying his hashbrowns with a confused look on his face, chewing slowly. “Yeah,” he says, distracted. “I think there’s something wrong with these.”

He tries to make you try some, and you start to laugh.

*

He drops you off at your house, and you drive around for a little while, industrial machinery and boxcars like busted toys clanking down the railroad tracks. You love the highways out here, brand-new and smooth as fresh paint, and from an overpass, the valley is laid out for you and you can see everything.

You think that if you go fast enough, the wind will naturally rub your mind clean, and there’s Haren with his hands inside your T-shirt and your T-shirt pulled over your head, so your hands were tied together with his, your wrists pressing flat to flat. You don’t think this place is meant to hold cities; the land itself seems to reject what’s been built. In your head, you keep a constant loop of Street saying, _you’re my best friend_ , like maybe that memory can take the place of all the others.

You get to the ballpark late, a dumb hope that Haren will already be on the field and you won’t have to talk to him, but he’s right there, half-dressed in his uniform pants and undershirt. He’s on the couch by your locker, which you think is probably not intentional, because it’s the best couch.

Without looking at him, you put your stuff in your locker and take off your shirt and then just stare at the neat row of jerseys, dark green and yellow, missing the home whites. You can feel Haren’s eyes on you. You can feel him breathing slow and tracing your back, long muscle and the trench of your spine. Tension building up in your shoulders, you can feel him getting ready to say something, something crude and mean, something that will cut you down where it matters most.

You whirl, your heart in your mouth, big panicked eyes, biting off, “Would you _please_ -”

But Haren’s not even there. You feel unimaginably stupid, and get dressed quickly, your hands fumbling with your belt. Out on the field it’s bright enough to hurt, and Haren is way out by the warning track, tossing a ball with Zito.

It doesn’t seem possible, but you go the whole game without interacting with him, opposite sides of the dugout, stealing looks at him as you crush your hat between your hands. He’s attached to Zito’s side, just like last year, and you’re a ghost in this light, see-through skin, windowpane eyes. He never looks your way, or maybe he’s just better at it.

You think without much hope that maybe Haren will take pity on you and keep this up, never mention it, forget it ever happened. Like, what’s a random blowjob between friends? It makes no sense to take it too personally, to turn it into an outlined nightmare that will wear away at your insides until you can’t keep yourself together anymore.

Because your luck is just that fucking bad, you’re in the equipment room looking for the neatsfoot oil and Haren comes in, his shoulders taking up the whole space of the doorway. He spots you, and you’re wrist-deep in baseballs, blinking back at him. Long pause.

“Hey.”

You swallow cautiously. “Hi.”

Haren is carrying his spikes, sock-footed on the cold cement, and one of his laces is snapped. He crosses behind you and starts rummaging around in a drawer. You are staring at his back and holding your breath.

“Rich, listen-”

You whip your head to the side, red fuzz bleeding over your eyes. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

He looks over at you, white and blue and patchy scruff on his cheeks. “Yeah, I think I figured that out.”

“So don’t. Don’t think it’s, like. It’s just being down here, that’s all.”

Haren makes a cynical little laughing noise. “Oh, is that all?”

You pull your hands free and fiddle with the laces of your glove, remembering the push of Haren’s breath on your stomach and his hands are so fucking big, you can feel them everywhere.

“You were drunk and I was drunk, so.”

“Well, bullshit, but whatever. Give me some fucking credit. That wasn’t your first time.”

You flinch, you hold on to your hard front. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Haren shrugs. “Nothing.”

You’re quiet, watching each other. You’re noticing the draw of Haren’s cheekbones, the high wings of his eyebrows. Narrow-faced and all that wrecked hair, jagging around his ears, tucked under his shirt collar. The light is very low in here, and Danny Haren pressed you up against the side of the garage and kissed you like a dirty song. You can’t for the life of you forget.

“What are you gonna do?” you ask him, not liking the way your voice gives. He gives you a confused look.

“What do you mean?”

You move your hand indistinctly at the space between you. “Okay, so we did something stupid and now. It’s over, right?”

He lifts his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

You nod, trying to look more assured than you feel. “Yeah,” you reply, thinking idiotically, _wham, bam, thank you dan_.

He shakes his head, takes a step towards you. His mouth is thin and angry. “See, Richie, and this is where you’ve fucked it up. Because who said it was stupid and what’s keeping you from, from. Fuck. Hanging on like this, like someday you’ll get what you want, but Huston’s never-”

“ _Don’t_.”

You’re taken aback by the power in your voice, and Haren is too, he goes still and his face warps. Your hands are shaking, wrenched in fists on your glove. The leather is soft and the broken laces are sliding across your knuckles. You count breaths.

“Whatever, man,” Haren says eventually, and then he’s walking out, rapping you hard upside the head with the broad side of his palm as he goes, and you listen to the hum in your ears and the scrubbed-raw feeling in your chest, your bones poking crookedly at your skin.

You go home alone and drink yourself blind. You're trying to avoid dreaming, but there’s nothing for it, and there’s a wicked highway with the sun in your eyes, huge cranes like crucifixes following you around.

The next day, it rains, for the first time in five months. It doesn’t fuck around. One full day of the windows shivering and your jeans are wet halfway up your shins, running through wide puddles. You go to the movies with Crosby and Melhuse once the game is rained out, see something utterly forgettable. Arcade games jitter spastically under your hands, you play Tetris and you’re better when you play it on your phone. It’s the desert and no one thought to build overhangs, and you hate everything today.

Street calls you that night and he meets up with you and the guys for dinner at a crummy little Mexican place by the highway. You’ve been thinking of plans of escape and the highway signs give you direction. Five hours from Los Angeles and that’s no good because everyone you’ve ever met is from Los Angeles. No point in running away to somewhere familiar.

Street has a smear of salt (actual salt this time, because Street doesn’t fall for the same trick twice and he tested it on the heel of his hand first) on the side of his mouth and you keep watch on that, re-orienting yourself around old habits.

Street is talking very fast about Roger Clemens and says nothing you didn’t already learn from ‘Sportscenter.’ You appreciate the rattle of his voice like pebbles in a coffee can, and Crosby is eating salsa with a fork and flirting with the waitress.

Street covers everything in hot sauce and you absently imagine what his mouth must taste like, fired and sticky-slick with Coke. Your heart stops when Danny Haren walks in, because he’ll come over and smirk at you and say something incontrovertible about the crash you survived two days ago, but you get a better look and it’s just some tall kid in a maroon and gold baseball cap, fitting himself awkwardly into the spaces between his friends.

In the parking lot, the rain has finally stopped, black shining on the wet pavement. You and Street stand face to face, he’s got his hands in his pockets and you’re in soaked shoes, feeling yourself get sick.

“So I’m leaving for Anaheim tomorrow night,” Street says, unwrapping a piece of cinnamon gum and popping it in his mouth.

“Gotta beat South Africa first,” you say, mostly by rote. He laughs.

“Yeah, okay. Think we got that one covered.”

“That’s what you said about Canada.” You’re very tired, shifting to hear your socks squish.

“You’ll be all right without me?”

You pause, a trickle of fear on your spine because what if Street somehow knows, what if Haren told him or Crosby saw something or maybe he just guessed, knowing you inside and out the way he does. What if he can see the fissures in your composure, the fault lines tracking maps in your heart?

But he’s just smiling, charm like his best pitch and you know that Street is your friend, you know this like you know it’s sixty feet and six from the rubber to the plate.

“Of course, man.” You show him a grin and believe that you are getting away with it. Crosby and Melhuse are arguing somewhere behind you, both of them talking on their cell phones.

Street turns his head slightly, squinting into the streetlight. “It’s weird. Not being around.”

You fold your shoulders inward. “Yeah.” It’s weird not having him around.

“I mean, it’s cool. This whole thing. Feels, like. Important.”

“Spring training’s important too,” you remind him, trying to remember the reasons you didn’t play for Canada, officially your shoulder but really just because you knew they’d lose.

“I know,” Street says, wide-eyed and honest. “Jeez, I know. I keep looking for you guys. Keep forgetting their names, like, it’s not right to be pitching with them behind me. I don’t know.”

You don’t know what to say. “You’re doing all right.”

Street sighs. “Yeah.” He looks sad for a moment, then visibly brushes it off and smiles again, shaking his head. Street irons his T-shirts, insane like that, and the creases slice down his upper arms, little peaks of fabric. “Anyway. Have a good week.”

Then he hugs you, because Huston Street doesn’t care who can see and he knows the right way to say goodbye. His hands are in fists on your back and you gasp silently into his shoulder, sweet-bright smell of cinnamon filling your head. Warm like yesterday when the sun beat down and the grass shriveled, and you hold onto him, tight senseless grip on his shirt, your nose pressed down against his neck.

He lets you go and hollers see ya at Crosby and Melhuse and it echoes across the parking lot. You watch him walk to his car with his head up, his keys spinning around his thumb. You check the sky for rain but there’s nothing up there. You leave your teammates behind, trusting them to find their own way home, and you ride without thought as to where you’ll end up.

You wake up and the sky has cleared like it’s never even heard of rain, and as you walk into the kitchen, you see a complicated blur ducking under the table, a thump of knees hitting the tile and then “MOTHERFUCKER!”

Bobby Crosby rolls out from under the table, clutching his shoulder and groaning dramatically. You look down at him, entirely confused.

“Cocksucking _table_ , I’ll kill you!” Crosby howls, curling up in a ball.

“Um,” you say, praying for coffee.

Crosby glares at you with one eye, the other scrunched shut. “I was gonna jump out and scare you, but this _fucking table_ ,” kicking a chair halfway across a room, “has got fucking _struts_ or some shit and now my shoulder is _fucking broken._ ”

You crouch beside him, peeking under the table and seeing the wooden struts sticking out from the underside, hard square things jagging out.

“I think this is God trying to tell you to stop playing so many jokes,” you inform Crosby. He swears some more at you and checks his fingers for blood. You can imagine the bruise that is forming, deep plum-purple in the shape of a matchbook, stealing his ability to make the throw from the rim of the grass.

You get an apple out of the refrigerator and stand at the sink washing it, staring out the window at the pool deck and the glossy black trashbags leaning one against another, overflowing with bottles and paper plates. Your hands go numb under the flood of the water and Crosby is still making pained noises behind you, trying to get you to pay attention to him.

You find yourself daydreaming of South Africa beating the U.S. today, a six-billion-to-one shot the last time you checked Vegas, and Street showing up tomorrow in the clubhouse with thin red scratches on his arms and a burn of humiliation on his face.

“Rich,” Crosby says, having finally given up on trying to wring sympathy from you. You turn and he’s still holding his shoulder, his forearm cutting like a sash across his chest.

“What the fuck are you doing to that apple, man?”

You look down and your hands are ashy-blue, white half-moon nails digging into the water-softened skin of the apple, tearing it to pieces. You turn off the water and don’t bother to answer, throwing the apple away and going back upstairs, crawling back into bed and wishing that you’d never left.

When Crosby comes to tell you it’s time to go to the park, you answer that you’re sick, keeping the covers pulled over your head. He considers that, almost audibly.

“Sick or crazy?” he wants to know.

You bite the pillow as hard as you can. “Sick,” you say.

“Because you’ve been looking kinda crazy recently.”

Scream silently into the pillow and keep your voice even. “Just tell them, Bobby, okay?”

“Sure.” He pauses again. “You woulda been really scared if I’d come at you from under the table.”

“Yeah.”

You hear the door close and you are choking on cotton, down where your stomach feels like a clenched fist and you can’t make the pictures behind your eyes stop, cluttered like a rearview mirror.

You manage to sleep for most of the day, waking up with the surface of your skin iced with sweat from being under the blankets in the full light of day. You are sick, that wasn’t a lie. You have a fever or schizophrenia or mono or something like that. You wouldn’t have fucked around with Danny Haren in your right mind—of that you’re certain.

You get up at dusk, wandering around the house without turning the lights on. There’s stale bread for toast and Reese’s peanut butter that is so sweet it hurts your teeth. You’ve got ‘O Canada’ stuck in your head and you don’t want to find out how the South Africa game went, but college basketball is the only thing on and eventually the score scrolls by at the bottom of the screen. Street is on a plane to California and you are thinking about how everything is expanding.

Zito texts you, ‘come 2 the bar with us, punk,’ but sick is sick and rule number one is no going to a bar. You lie on the couch and think about how your team sucks and being gay sucks and living in Phoenix, with the coarse air and the black-and-white signs that tell the future, sucks most of all.

It’s pure night and you go to take the trash out, figuring that you might as well be helpfully insane. And Haren is sitting on your porch, his knees folded up and his hands tucked under his arms.

You close your eyes and promise yourself that when you look again, he’ll be gone. You don’t know why you think that will work.

“Dude,” Haren says.

You make your shoulders go stiff and take the trash down to the curb, jamming it deep in the bin. You rest your hands on the hard blue plastic and there are stars heavy on your shoulders, a black hole in your mind.

You walk back up the path and stop in front of him. “What?”

He looks like he wants to stand but can’t quite figure out if that’s the right thing. “You can’t miss games, Rich.”

You roll your eyes, because it’s just spring training. It’s not like the World Baseball Classic or something. “Sure I can. I wasn’t pitching. I. I’m sick.”

“You are not. You’re just, like. Guy who avoids everything.”

Glaring at him, you notice uncharitably the way his hair sticks to his forehead, black spiderweb hanks knotted around his ears. “I’m allowed to get sick, goddamn it.”

Haren’s face is tilted upwards and your shadow, backlit by the streetlights, is fallen atop him, cold gray on half his face and the other half all blue-eyed and the trace of his jaw.

“What’s going on with you? Why are you taking it so hard?” He jerks his head to the side. “You don’t want to do it again, fine, we won’t. But, like, you’re barely even _acknowledging_. And since when do you miss games?”

You used to miss games all the time. You used to fake stomachaches and leave baseball practice an hour early so that you could meet your friends on the high school’s clay tennis courts and play street hockey until the parking lot lights came on. You were never really meant for this.

“Look, I just needed a day, okay,” you say, feeling ill-fit into your skin, a scratch at the base of your spine and somehow you are watching Haren’s mouth like it’s got secrets to tell.

“It’s been three days,” he reminds you.

“Not because of you. You’re, you’re not the only thing that’s happening to me right now.”

It’s possible that that’s a lie. It’s possible that Haren kissing you against the garage had set into motion a fall of dominos, he knocked you over and you took everyone down with you. Haren is a bad kind of catalyst, he sends up thick smoke and your eyes are burning.

Haren stands, rising up out of your shadow, the curve of your shoulder on his chest, the throw-back of his body on the front door. “So he left, then?”

You breathe out and the moon is full or at least near-to, peeking out from behind the chimney like hide-and-go-seek.

“Only for a week.”

“Week’s a long time.”

“It’s really not, Dan.”

You glance at him and he’s scowling at you, fists in his pockets. “I don’t get why you’re so fucking gone on him when you got no shot.”

You shake your head, you think, _everyone’s got a shot_ , and anyway, Haren doesn’t know what he’s talking about. There is something in Huston Street, notches like the teeth of a key, a match for the uneven ridges inside that you keep so carefully guarded. You’ve never pulled for underdogs and you don’t believe that being ten runs down in the bottom of the ninth is surmountable. You have no faith in the improbable, but you have faith in this, that someday Street will light you up and put his hands in your pockets and snap your pieces into place.

“Did you come over here for, like, a reason?” you ask, wanting to be mad at him but mainly just exhausted.

He exhales and his shoulders fall. He pushes a hand through his hair and answers, “I thought maybe. Since he’s not around anymore. You might wanna still . . .”

He trails off and you have to laugh, feeling your eyes slice cold and sharp.

“I don’t get why you’re so fucking gone on me when you got no shot,” you say cruelly.

Haren’s face is slack with shock for a moment, quick paper-cut anger, and then he is taking handfuls of your shirt and pulling you in. You should have known he would take it as a challenge, because that bleeds out of him as red as anything, and you’re afraid he’s gonna hit you, not fair because he’s about twice your size and he knows you won’t back down.

You fist your hands on his hips and slam your head into his shoulder and he honest-to-god _growls_ , shoves you up against the porch’s wooden beam, and then kisses you with splinters in your back and your teeth cracking painfully into his.

You panic, rake your head to the side with a gasp and Haren bites your ear and opens his hands on your chest and your lungs contract. Your eyes are shut tight enough to sting and your heart is moving so swiftly.

“Danny, fuck,” you say, and he is blocking out all the light. You are in front of your house where the whole world can see you, and you know that this is what you’ve been given, and even if you don’t want it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t yours. It was a mistake the first time and nothing has changed, but you always have to be shown twice. You tip your head up and you are astonished to find yourself kissing him back. You’re at a loss.

That goes on for awhile. His knees are clocking into yours, because he’s got to sort of slouch to be on your level. His fingers wind in your shirt, his hair getting in your eyes and making them water. You search for the taste of cinnamon gum, but Haren is Altoids and the bitter aftertaste of chewed-up aspirin, his tongue in your mouth and slivers of wood and paint itching down your back.

Haren pulls away and you’re punch-drunk, stupid with it, half-hard already and trying to catch your breath as he takes you inside, upstairs, flat on the bed and you are watching him take off his shirt by the light of the moon and the blue glow of your computer screen. He looks paler like this, like maybe he’s the one who’s sick.

He grins at you and crawls on top, short work of your jeans and your shirt is drawn most of the way off, torn on his wristwatch and it’s so strange. It’s not your fault that you’re gay and not your fault that Haren is, whatever the fuck he is, not your fault that Street is almost certainly not, not your fault that Canada lost in the first round, because you couldn’t leave your team.

Haren kisses you until you don’t care that your leg is hooked over his shoulder. You feel your heel skidding on his back and you are bent almost double, long stretch in your stomach and shoulders and you reach back for the edge of the bed, something to hold onto as Haren mumbles incoherently into your neck. He goes slow at first, though you’re unsure if that’s intentional. He has to remind you to breathe.

You let it happen. You take part, hiking your hips and digging your teeth into Haren’s arm. You are stone-cold sober and afire, you are throwing off sparks. Haren fucks you, strong from a month of spring training, roughed up and careful not to rest his weight on your bad shoulder, though he licks the healed surgical scar over and over again, until you are certain that it will not be there come morning.

He falls asleep right after, and you are left jittery as hell, raw on the inside. You can’t think straight, all messed up with scratches on your chest and a helpless, overwhelming desire to drive west, let the sun rise in your rearview mirror and white-out the back windshield.

You get up on shaking legs and put your boxers back on because fuck if you’ll wake up naked next to Dan Haren again, and you get your phone and lean next to the window, crazy heartbeat and it takes you three tries to find Street’s number in your contacts.

He picks up just before it goes to voicemail, staticked and muffled, “’lo?”

You close your eyes, picturing him shirtless and wrapped up in hotel blankets. “Hi.”

“Mm. ‘s late, Richie.”

“Sorry. Just. How’s Anaheim?”

“It’s okay. You drunk?” You can hear him half-smiling, making something ache inside you.

“No. Just awake, that’s all.” You stare out at the shuttered neighborhood, gnarled desert brush and cacti instead of flowers. Impossible kind of place, Phoenix in the spring. “You guys feeling pretty good about Japan?”

“Sure.” He yawns, his jaw popping audibly. “Fear nothing, you know.”

You cover your face with your hand, teeth strict on the lines of your fortune. You can’t keep going like this, it’s gonna kill you. Huston Street owes you something; your peace of mind and the steadiness of your hands depend on him. He has to understand that he can’t leave you anymore.

“Listen, when you get back, we gotta talk.”

Street is quiet for a moment, then asks, a little more awake, “’Bout what?”

“Oh. Nothing. Just got some stuff to tell you.”

He rustles and you imagine him scratching his stomach, rolling his head on the pillow. “’Kay. Whatever you need, man.”

You curse him, you press your fingertips into the hollow of your eye and there’s no doubt in your mind that you will get this wrong, you will ruin it, never ever be okay with that.

“I’ll see you next week, Huston.”

“Yeah, Richie, get some sleep.” He hums rustily and then disconnects, and you wait for the dial tone for way too long before remembering that there’s no such thing on cell phones.

You slowly close your phone, look over and Danny Haren is watching you from the bed, his mouth bruised and his eyes flooded. You make a bad smile and climb back in. It’s dead silent and you feel Haren turning towards you, wait for him to say something but no luck. You lock your gaze on the ceiling and fall asleep with his hand on your stomach, nothing else between you.

THE END

 


End file.
